I do agree with what you say about 'best practices' and hard-and-fast rules...

I am no SQL expert by any means---but, I will say that after so many years of doing procedural programming that when I had to face SQL (small / large queries) to convert reports, I can see that trying to put an envelop around SQL and say that 'this' or 'these' are the 'correct' ways in all cases is something that seems not possible....